Indonesian election: More on the Prabowo surge

The Interpreter has been flooded with traffic since we published Aaron Connelly's analysis of the Indonesian presidential race on Tuesday afternoon.

Aaron said Prabowo Subianto was now favourite to win the Indonesian presidential election, an unthinkable prospect just a month ago in the race against former Jakarta governor Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo. Aaron also said that some Jokowi-aligned institutions are holding back their opinion polling because they fear that Prabowo's strong showing in those polls will, if published, further weaken their preferred candidate. Fairfax Indonesia correspondent Michael Bachelard has now backed up this analysis via his own sources.

As you will hear in Aaron Connelly's Quick Comment below (the interviewer is Lowy Institute intern Steven Hong), some Prabowo supporters in Indonesia have used Aaron's analysis to claim that their candidate is in front. There's no direct evidence for that claim yet, though as Aaron wrote, it is looking more likely. Listen also for Aaron's thoughts (4.20) on what a Prabowo presidency might mean.